Disclaimer: The characters in my stories are completely made up characters and have temporally been given borrowed names for the sole purpose of satisfying the qualifications for posting on this fanfiction site. These stories are fiction and should be perceived as such. They in no way reflect the lives, beliefs or views of any persons living or dead and any similarities are coincidental. I am not affiliated with any company or professional wrestler in any way. No disrespect or copyright infringement intended. And if any of my favs happen upon my stories, I hope your not offended because this is not about you, it is about feedback on my story ideas. :) I love and respect what you do and I thank you for all the joy and entertainment over the years.
This is my new story idea. I hope everyone enjoys it. Please Review. :)
Chapter 1
"Randie!" Matt called from the top of the treehouse. "Where have you been?" She hadn't come to play in three days and it wasn't the same without her.
"My mom took me to Grams!" The little girl in the pink the sundress and strawberry blonde pigtails climbed the ladder and plopped down on the old tweed rug beside him.
"We already chose." Jaycee Hamilton, who was a bit snobby and spoiled because her mother gave her anything she wanted sat with a pout, her arms folded over her chest. "We're playing house and we already decided who the mom and dad is so you'll have to be something else."
"But that's not fair. Randie wasn't here." Matt was the oldest. Getting close to thirteen and his tolerance for childish things were fading.
"It's okay." Randie grinned mischievously. "I don't want to be the mom." Randie had recently turned eleven and had matured beyond her age both mentally and physically.
"You can be the kid this time." Jaycee, who always got stuck playing the kid or the maid smiled and dusted imaginary dirt off her frilly pink dress.
Matt hated playing with Jaycee. Every day she came with her hair fixed to perfection in a dress meant for Easter Sunday with the matching dress shoes she couldn't run in. They always had to do something that she could do without getting dirty. She always had to have her way and if she didn't get it she would run home to her Mama, full tears, screaming like she'd been hurt. Then her mother would call his mom and he would get in trouble for doing or saying something he didn't do. It was always easier just to let Jaycee have her way.
"I hate it when Jaycee's the mom!" Jeff, Matt's little brother whined.
"Hush up." Matt warned. Jeff was four years younger and he always had to look out for him. If Jeff did something wrong, Matt was the one responsible because he was the oldest and should have kept him out of trouble and Jeff was always getting into trouble.
"Fine. Me and Maddie will play something else. Come on Maddie." And Jeff stormed down the ladder with Jaycee's little cousin in tow.
"Randie, don't forget to make your bed and help me with the laundry." Jaycee was twirling in front of the full length mirror Matt's mom had donated to the tree house. "We've got to get this house clean for the dinner party tonight."
Randie rolled her eyes. "I'm not gonna be your kid, Jaycee."
"You have to. Who's going to be the baby? We have to have babies."
"Use the baby doll." Matt tossed the large doll she carried with her everywhere.
"Be careful. That doll cost more than your daddy makes in a month." Jaycee had a lot of nice things that she liked to rub in their faces including that stupid doll that was always dressed just like her. "So what are you going to be, Randie?"
"You and Matt are married and Matt is an executive in a big company and I will be his secretary."
"A secretary? Don't they just answer the phone and type letters?" Jaycee was pouting again.
"And bring coffee and go on business trips with the boss. I saw it in a movie at my Gram's house." Then Randie went over to the small roll top desk they had found on the side of the road. It was missing the drawers and the chair legs wobbled, but it worked. She picked up a toy typewriter that had tagged along and been left behind with by one of them over the years and placed it by the broken telephone she had dug out of her parent's trash when she was six.
"I'm going to work!" Matt called out in his pretend, deep husband voice, arranged and old wooden crate in front of the desk and pulled up a ratty old ottoman. He loved that old treehouse. The old wood it was made from was grey from the weather, it shook when he walked and it was an eye sore according to his mother, but it could be whatever he wanted it to be.
He lived on a farm and had a long chore list. He lived on a farm, but since he was eight, that treehouse was never far from his mind. He thought about it as he fed the animals and tended the barn. He squirmed impatiently at the breakfast table, waiting for the sun to rise and his mama's okay, then he would run off to meet Randie. He gazed around. The place didn't seem as magical as it once had. Growing up had peeled away the veil of fantasy, leaving nothing but it's the ugly truth of reality.
Once, he had walked in and seen a palace, now it was nothing but empty cardboard boxes and discarded trash they had accumulated. The once plush throne was nothing but a pile of yellowed pillows and leaking bean bags. The dining table was an old wooden spool from the plant his father worked in and its chairs nothing but stolen milk crates from the corner store. The stove, a box with a door cut out and knobs drawn on. He sighed. He had spent so much time building it over the years with Randie and he wasn't ready to give it up, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see it as it had once been.
Each day, it felt like his world was slipping away from him. He had a harder time staying lost in his fantasy world and he was thinking about things he'd never thought about before.
"Randie, my coffee cup's almost empty." He mocked what he'd seen on television before. "And put some sugar in it this time." A desperate attempt to hold on to what was left of the boy inside him. Pretending he didn't feel awkward playing the game he was playing.
"You know where the coffee pot is." Randie tapped on an old typewriter and brought the disconnected phone to her ear.
"You're a horrible secretary." Matt laughed and got up and pretended to fill an imaginary cup.
"If you want a better secretary, give me a raise."
"Oh, I'll give you a raise." He tickled her sides, making her squeal and scream at him to stop. He beginning to feel different things about girls too. He felt different about Randie.
"You spilled your coffee all over my desk and me." Randie swatted at the imaginary liquid on her dress, then let out a sigh. "I'll have to do it all over again." She sounded as if she was tired of playing, or maybe she was wishing it was as easy to play like him. "Here, your wife is on the phone." She stated blandly.
Randie must have seen Jaycee pouting because the girl brightened up and held her thumb and piggy finger to her ear.
"I would like to talk to my husband please." Jaycee said in her pretend, high pitched, better than everyone voice.
"Tell her I'm out to lunch." Matt stated dryly. "And you're coming with me."
They climbed out of the tree house and Matt grabbed Randie's hand the minute their feet were on the ground. They ran into the woods, Jaycee running behind as fast as she could in her fancy white dress shoes, but Matt was faster with his long legs and he pulled Randie along with him until he found his favorite fig tree. The branches were full of leaves and touched the ground, but the inside was hollow, allowing them to hide easily.
"You're not playing fair." Jaycee whined. They watched her through the leaves as she hunted for them. "I'm gonna tell!"
"She's going to run home to her mama," Randie warned.
"I don't care." Matt sat back against the tree and pulled a twig from the tree branch and began to strip off the leaves. "Do you ever feel like you want to play this game, but you kind of feel like you're not supposed to anymore?"
"Yeah." Randie sat in front of him, her legs stretched out beside his and crossed at the ankles. She pulled the braids out of her hair, like she did every day, leaving it in soft waves that fell around her. Matt loved when she did that even though he couldn't remember when he started noticing. "So what are we going to do now?"
"I don't know, adult stuff?"
"Fun." She said sarcastically. "My dad keeps telling me that I'm too old for toys and that he won't be buying me anymore. I guess I'll be getting clothes and stuff for Christmas now instead." She laughed. "I don't really play with my dolls and stuff anyway." Then she turned serious and he thought she looked sad. "And he says that I can't run off to play with you guys anymore."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I'm not supposed to be here now, but I snuck out."
"Are you going to be in trouble when you get home?"
"Yeah." She sighed. "But I had to say goodbye."
"You're not coming at all anymore?" Matt felt like someone had punched him in the gut.
"I guess not." She wiped a tear out of her eye. He'd never seen Randie cry. She was always falling and scraping her knee or cutting something. Her legs and arms were always bruised. One time he noticed she had bruises on the back of her neck so big that it disappeared behind the dress she wore because she'd fallen down the basement stairs the night before.
She was a clumsy kid. Always tripping, falling and bumping into things even though he'd never seen her fall more than any other kid did. And she was great at sports, as good as any boy he knew. She could play anything with him and his brother. She didn't mind being tackled playing football, she would slide into home playing baseball and she would dive into the dirt to hit that dang volleyball anywhere it soared.
"My mom left." She confided. "She took me to my Grams for a while. Then my dad came and got me last night and said I was going to live with him. And since my mom doesn't live with us anymore, I have to stay at home and do the chores and stuff from now on."
"I do that stuff. You'll still have time to hang out."
"No." She looked at her hands. "I'm not allowed to play with boys. Daddy says I'm at the age where it's not appropriate anymore. He never thought it was actually. It was my mom that didn't care."
"She's never coming back?"
"I don't think so. They're always yelling at each other. You should hear them fighting. It's really silly. It sounds just like Jeff and Maddie when they argue over some toy. Only I'm the toy. I don't want to love one parent more than the other, but I feel like I have to or I'll make them mad."
Matt knew right then and there that Randie had mentally matured over the three days she had been gone. Maybe even more than he had. Their childhood was fading and Matt really just wanted to hold on even though he wasn't sure why he was so desperate to keep things the same as they had always been.
"When I get married I'm not going to fight with my wife." Matt vowed.
"I don't think that's something you can promise. People fight when they get married."
"Well, I'm not going to get mad over little things."
"My dad gets mad if my mom cooks something he doesn't like for supper and they have big arguments over it and they don't talk for days sometimes."
"My dad doesn't do that. They only fight over bills and stuff. I don't get that either. I mean it's not like fighting is going to put more money in the bank."
"I'm not getting married. Then I won't have to worry about it."
"You're already married." Matt nudged her legs with his own. "You married me a hundred times."
"You're so silly Matt Hardy!" Randie laughed, then he leaned forward and gave her lips a quick peck. Her sparkling blue eyes grew wide with shock.
"What did you do that for?"
"Because I wanted to."
"Ha! I found you!" Jaycee poked her head into the tree. "My mom called your mothers and she said that they said that you better be nice and play with me or you'll be in big trouble."
"No they didn't." Matt spat and he and Randie climbed out from under the tree. "You're lying Jaycee."
"I am not."
"You are lying, Jaycee. Because my mother doesn't live with us anymore." Randie screamed at her. "And I don't want to play anymore. I'm too old to play these games."
"You're the same age as me." Jaycee challenged.
"Yeah, well some people have to grow up faster than others." Randie gave Matt that sad gaze before turning and heading out of the woods.
"Hey Randie!" Matt called after her. She turned. "You're still my wife."
She smiled. "I'll always be your wife, Matt."
Matt stretched out an arm and slapped the alarm clock. Of all the dreams to wake up remembering, it had to be that one. It wasn't even a dream. It was a memory of his twelve year old self and the girl next door. But that was a different time. Before his mother died. Before he had to tend to the cooking, the cleaning, the animals and the corn fields. Before he became the warden of five little brothers and before he realized that he was so poor, he was worth less than all the dirt in the town of Cheyenna.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stared at the ceiling. That had been two years ago. Summer had ended for him that day and his childhood too. He hadn't thought about the tree-house in a long time and he had no clue why it had crept into his dreams. Shit. He sat up on the side of the bed. He didn't have time to reminisce. It was four a.m. on Saturday. He was already late getting to his chores. Time only moved forward. It couldn't be reversed. What happened, happened and could never be undone.